Speaking in a press conference, Erste’s Chief Financial Officer Manfred Wimmer said the employees were not part of the negotiations with the five regional investment funds SIFs and they needed to be allowed to sell their stock under favorable conditions.
Wednesday, Erste said it has reached an agreement in principle with SIF Banat Crisana, SIF Transilvania, SIF Munteania and SIF Oltenia, but not SIF Moldova, to acquire 24.12% or 2.6 billion shares in BCR for EUR435 million in cash and stock via a series of transactions.
The deal, subject to SIF corporate approval proceedings, sets BCR’s value at EUR1.8 billion.
Further to the transaction with the participating SIFs, Erste Group will continue to make separate annual share purchase offers to the remaining employee minority shareholders (0.48%) adhering to the same principles as in the 2010 offer, the Austrian bank said in a statement.
In 2010, Erste proposed BCR’s employees EUR15 million for a total stake of 0.57%. The offer put BCR’s value at EUR2.6 billion.
Wimmer said BCR’s employees would be made a similar offer as the 2010 program later this year.